Blog by Ernst de Haan (from .nl). What is there to know about me? Above all, that I am a christian. On this blog I write mostly about web development, UNIX, Apple, Java, XML and web design.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Mac OS X 10.6 'Snow Leopard' (updated)

Several sites (including MacRumors and Arstechnica) are spreading the rumor that Mac OS X 10.6 will be announced at Apple's WWDC, this coming week. The new release will supposedly be called "Snow Leopard" and the release focus will be on stability and performance.

If this is true, then that is in my opinion a Good Thing. After using FreeBSD and Linux on my primary desktop for years, I switched to Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) in Q4 2006. Although I've not had major problems, OS X has been pestering me now and then:

crashing background processes (sometimes several times an hour)

spontaneous reboots (1 or 2 per year)

failures to come back to life after being suspended (closed lid on MacBook Pro)

Rock solid stability is definitely very much welcomed, as well as improved security, especially for professional/business users like myself.

For me, a desktop computer should allow it's users to work efficient. For this, you need sufficient speed, proper functionality, an effective keyboard/mouse/touch interface, stability and security.

In my experience, the OS X 10.4 operating system works nicely, but has it's stability issues. It's probably more stable than Windows, but definitely less than Linux and FreeBSD.

Update (June 10): Indeed this has been announced by Apple as anticipated, see the Apple site for more information.